The second season of the Sacramento Kings unique startup competition, Capitalize, is officially in full swing!
This year, nearly 100 companies entered the competition, all with different ideas that seek to make the world a better place—including innovations to improve healthcare, healthy food options and other exciting consumer applications.
Eleven of the top sixteen companies also were founded by alumni of regional schools, showing the strength of homegrown talent in and around the Sacramento region. Seven companies are UC Davis affiliated, two are from Chico State, one is from Sacramento State, and another hails from Sacramento City College.
These sixteen contestants will gather at Golden 1 Center on Thursday, March 2 to pitch their ideas to investors, tech executives and local innovators. At the end of the round-by-round tournament, four companies will remain and compete as finalists leading up to Kings Tech Night, taking place March 22 at Golden 1 Center.
Once the final four companies are announced, Kings fans will have a chance to make their voice heard and help determine the winner by voting for their favorite finalist. Stay tuned to Kings.com to learn more information about the final four companies and their ideas. Fans will also have a chance to cast their ballots for a deserving winner via Twitter.
The four finalists will join the Kings and Moneta Ventures center court during the fourth quarter of the team's game against Milwaukee Bucks. The Capitalize Grand Prize Winner will be announced and receive a $10,000 cash prize and opportunity to have lunch with a Kings owner.
Keep up to date with the Capitalize Startup Contest at Kings.com/Capitalize.
Meet this year’s semifinalist companies battling it out to be the 2017 Capitalize winner:
ARIZ Precision Medicine
ARIZ Precision Medicine is a cancer drug development company is using targeted drug delivery systems to deliver genetic messages to kill cancer cells selectively. By targeting the cause of cancer at an early stage, they create drugs that are potentially curative and without side effects.
Astrona Biotechnologies
Astrona Biotechnologies is a company focused on building a simple to use detector using their proprietary technology that can be employed on-site during every phase of food production from field to table. They aim to provide customers with sensitive and highly adaptable means for screening their products in less than an hour.
eHarvestHub Inc.
eHarvest Hub Inc. has developed the World’s Largest Fresh Local Produce Marketplace where small farmers can list their products and aggregate volume across multiple small growers. This marketplace essentially gives retailers one location to shop from various small farmers and still meet their volume. It also allows shippers to hire owner/operator trucks directly which significantly reduces the cost of transportation.
EicOsis Human Health
EicOsis Human Health is developing an entirely new class of non-addictive analgesic medications that can be used in sports medicine as well as in patients with acute or chronic pain. These medications are potentially safer and more effective than morphine-like analgesics in treating severe pain and more effective than ibuprofen or naproxen in treating inflammatory pain.
Gatekeeper Innovation Inc.
Gatekeeper Innovation Inc. is the creator of Safer Lock—the only patented 4-digit combination locking cap that fits on standard prescription bottles. This invention aims to save lives that are endangered by prescription drug abuse as it is the No. 1 healthcare epidemic in the United States.
HoopMaps
HoopMaps is a company that has created a mobile app that allows people to find pickup basketball games in their area. This app will allow users to publish a game which will then notify any user within a 25-mile radius of the game location that a game is close by.
HuMurine Technologies Inc.
HuMarine Technologies Inc. specializes in the creation of mice engrafted with a human immune system that acts as “Avatars” of patients to simultaneously test the efficiency and safety of new anti-cancer immunotherapies while they undergo treatment. Through this idea, the “Avatar” mice would represent a novel personalized medicine model to test new immunotherapies against human cancers. HuMarine Technologies Inc. aims to generate the best and most optimized “humanized” immune system mouse platform in the world and implement them into normal research studies for the pharmaceutical industry—which would allow speedy FDA approval of drugs and therapies.
Oomni Inc.
Oomni Inc. is an oncology research and development company focused on a new class of “add-on” drugs for multiple cancer indications. Their first product, Oomnicoxib, is a patented molecule with two structural features that strongly bind to two different proteins in the body that are responsible for responding to pain and inflammation. By doing this, Oomnicoxib aims to cause a decrease in blood flow to tumors and prevent cancer from growing and spreading to other parts of the body.
Promaxo
Promaxo is developing and commercializing an office-based, cost effective MRI, biopsy and treatment tools, and automated software for tissue characterization. This company is focused on addressing the needs of the prostate cancer market—with visions to explore indications in female urology, OB/GYN and sports medicine markets in the future. With patented MR technology, Promaxo looks to take advantage of proprietary ultra-fast and strong rise-and-fall gradients which yield images with spatial resolution of 30 microns, comparable to histology.
Raydiant Oximetry
Raydiant Oximetry is a company that has developed a new fetal oximetry that will transform how babies are monitored during childbirth. With a working prototype, Raydiant Oximetry hopes to reduce the added risks and costs to the mother and baby during C-sections.
TacSense Inc.
TacSense Inc. develops flexible force and pressure sensing solutions targeted for medical devices, advanced robotics and wearable electronics. As an industrial power in ultrasensitive and flexible sensors, TacSense’s proprietary technologies will enable an array of pressure and force sensing applications with ultrahigh resolution and ultrafast response.
Tenkiv
Tenkiv is a company that designs, builds and implements advanced energy systems with the goal of democratizing sustainable water and energy access. Their unique technology can handle energy acquisition, distribution, storage and conversion while remaining cost competitive with fossil fuels—all with a single, modular solar thermal system.
Text to Ticket Inc.
Text to Ticket Inc. aims to help make roads safer by reducing distracted driving. Through their app, their company will pay users to submit videos that catch texting and driving in the act.
Trifecta, Inc.
Trifecta, Inc. is the nation’s largest “all-organic” meal delivery service. Shipping fully cooked and ready-to-eat meals to all 50 states, this company offers food to suit many different diet types and a la carte options. All of their food is 100-percent USDA Organic, gluten, dairy and soy-free and has an Animal Welfare level of five. Trifecta, Inc. operates as an e-commerce platform that allows them to scale nationwide almost overnight.
UPGRADED
UPGRADED is a company that converts traditional event tickets into secure, interactive digital assets that are protected by the Blockchain (similar to Bitcoin), which enables buyers and sellers to interact with complete trust—even on sites like Craigslist. UPGRADED’s program allows even event owners (artists, teams, etc.) to have greater control over the tickets after initial sale, including who is allowed to own the tickets or how much the tickets can be resold for.